Haunted
by ChibiJaime
Summary: SPOILER WARNING AHEAD. Erol. He failed to kill Jak, but he's back for a second go... what are the thoughts running through his now tormented mind...?


{/THIS IS A HUGE SPOILER WARNING. If you read past this point, you have the potential of spoiling a possible Jak 3 development, and if you haven't gotten past the race with Erol in Jak 2, you're spoiling what's past that!  
  
Moving on.  
  
After seeing the new image of Erol from Jak 3, I decided to write this. Sort of an introspective on his part... because I've become a member of the legion of Erol Fangirls, and without a doubt, this is one of the toughest things I've written.  
  
I know absolutely nothing about what he is now. This is speculation only, so don't quote me on this. Huge warning, there is IMPLIED HOMOSEXUALITY AHEAD. Or at least bisexuality, on Erol's part. I'm still of the firm belief that Erol was, if you'll excuse this expression (I've used it in front of my gay friends before ;), gayer than a rainbow over a gay pride parade.  
  
Here we go!/}  
  
=Haunted=  
  
This face. This face.  
  
Thinking back on it, I cannot help but to laugh at my own pride and my foolish decisions that led me to where I am now.  
  
That face in the mirror. My face? I am not so sure it is my face anymore. The right half, destroyed in the explosion, replaced by some strange mixture of stone and scale. My body changed, mutated, twisted into something unnatural, not entirely human. I can feel the raw, unnatural power coursing through my veins, and in truth, it terrifies me. I am terrified by the power I now show; I am held captive by my own self!  
  
Is that not a foolish and childish notion? Fear of one's own self. I find myself questioning things that, three years ago, I never would have questioned. What drove me to my actions that fateful day? Why did I let my anger get the better of me, sending me hurtling at breakneck speeds towards Jak when I knew there behind him was a substance far more deadly than any lethal poison?  
  
Why did I do that when I knew he would leap out of the way?  
  
There really is no answer to any of those questions... only speculations tossed in a tortured mind. Perhaps it was because I was tired of living knowing that he would always be one step ahead of me. Maybe it was my pride, fueling me foreward. Or in truth, perhaps it was because I knew what that eco could do.  
  
It was a long shot, I know. But at the time, if that was the thought in my mind, I do not think it mattered.  
  
I saw what Jak had become in the face of two years... two years within which I made it a point to show him the true meaning of pain. The face he saw when he looked through those bars as the door came unlocked each morning was mine. The face he knew as his tormentor, his captor, and the man who changed him from a boy to a monster was mine.  
  
Oh, I know he placed the blame entirely on Baron Praxis, but the one who pulled the lever was always me. I pushed the buttons; I pulled the strings!  
  
If there was any rage he had towards me, it was because of that little mechanic girl that he cared so much for. I know he burned with jealousy whenever he saw me, because in her eyes, he could never live up to the bar I had always set as a racer... and as a man.  
  
He wanted to win, and win he did. I hated him for that. I was both appalled and fascinated by him, however. I wanted to know what made him tick. I wanted to know why he moved and acted the way he did. And yet, I wanted him dead. And I wanted to be the one that killed him.  
  
It would have been a near religious thing, to take his life with my own hands. I was known well for a bloodlust near unsatiable. I felt something akin to lust for him, and yet, it was not for him. It was a want to dominate and to make him know that I was the master, and he could not beat me.  
  
You did beat me, didn't you Jak? The way you curled your lip and glared before turning your eyes to the track excited me in a way I cannot even begin to understand or explain. I saw the mask of determination you wore through the bloodied, twisted, fractured eyes of that protective faceguard I always wore.  
  
Ah, that faceguard... I cannot help but wonder what became of it, after you watched it fall useless to the racetrack. It was that mask that made me who I was. People recognized it... it was almost symbolic.  
  
And now, without it, I stand here staring at my own reflection, wondering what became of everyone I once fought. My mind, these days, wanders like the thoughts of a forgetful child, things coming to my head one after the other as if feathers in a breeze.  
  
My plan is in mind and I will follow it... down to the letter. I will see the new governor dead, and Torn along with her. I will make the rest of those Underground dogs pay for their betrayal.  
  
And you, Jak. You.  
  
I am not entirely certain what I will do with you when I find you... when I get my hands on you.  
  
...  
  
No. No, that is a lie. I do know. I will kill you, but you will suffer for the pain you caused me. I will make you mine before the end, Jak.  
  
And that is a promise.  
  
=End= 


End file.
